HD Communications and IPv6 – The perfect couple?

The current pool of IPv4 internet addresses is going to run out in the next 24 months, providing some dramatic implications for anyone rolling out new services over the next year.

John Curran, long-time Internet “gray beard” and current President and CEO of ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers) thinks that device manufacturers of all types — including HD handset and gateway companies — better be on board with IPv6 support because time under the old Internet numbering scheme is running out.

Curran says that some of the IPv6 vendors who talked up the depletion of IPv4 addresses five years ago may have “immunized” vendors and service providers to the problem, but with 24 months to the end of the road for IPv4 addresses there’s no avoiding support for IPv6 anymore.

“You look at the trends [for number allocation] and in 24 months we’re out of addresses,” said Curran. “Maybe, with heroic measures, by reclaiming IP addresses, you can stretch that out for another six months.”

The U.S. government has mandated IPv6 support with the Department of Defense taking the lead and some larger enterprises are already moving to IPv6 rather than have to deal with the headache of running a mixed network of IPv4 and IPv6 Curran noted that gateways can only go so far, and they will be one of a number of headaches everyone will have to be aware of in the future.

Since HD communications is representative of “new” hardware and services available over the next year, Curran hoped that HD vendors were baking in IPv6 support now, both for their future success and for the happiness of their customers.